Page 5 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
It’s a California number I don’t recognize, and Dad glances up from the bell pepper he’s dicing. I’ve been hiding from my phone all day, but something makes me shrug at him and pick up the call anyway. Not just something, really—it’s that familiar itch at the back of my throat, the one that feels halfway like tears. The one that says:It could be Mom.
Of course, it isn’t.
“Rose?” The voice on the other end of the line is serious and clear. I stand up taller, and Dad quirks an eyebrow at me. “This is Evelyn Cross from XLR8 in Mountain View. Do you have a moment? We’d love to talk to you about MASH.”
The woods behind my house are age-old and whispery. The wind moves differently here, fingering through the shivering aspen leaves. It’s not a forest, exactly—you can’t get lost in it. If you walk for too long you’ll get to John Able’s house, and his big black dog will howl up a warning from the back porch. But if you stand in the very middle—seventy-two paces in—it goes quiet. And then, like a radio switching stations, the noise picks up again. Only different, now.You can hear the heartbeat of the earth out here, Dad told me once when I was small. Miller was with us; I watched himpress his palm to the pine-needle floor of the world, feeling for it.
I hate that these woods belong to both of us—that even here, three summers after he last spoke to me, I’m thinking of Miller. The firelight playing across his pale cheeks, and the echo of his laugh on the wind, and the rooted way he was always nearby. It’s Miller’s face blinking back at me when I close my eyes, grab right onto the earth until my fingernails hurt. That last way he looked at me, before he never looked at me again.
Out here wind moves like the ocean across the aspen trunks, shushing me. When I can’t breathe, when my brain feels like the gash of a trapped scream, the woods root me down. Trip my lungs like a breaker so they remember their rhythm and keep me alive.
I’m sitting on the mossy patch between two gnarled trees when Dad finds me on Monday morning—right in the middle of the woods with my eyes shut, my makeup done and my blazer on and Maren’s too-tight flats again. School starts in one week. I’m meeting with XLR8 in one hour. Miller’s the last thing I should be thinking about, and I try to remember: the trees are all just out here breathing, and I am, too.
“There’ll be traffic,” Dad says. He’s not the nervous type, but still—he tugs a little at his collar. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him in a dress shirt. “We should hit the road.”
“Yeah,” I say, standing up. I brush the dirt from my palms, wishing I could bring it with me.
“You got everything you need?”
We look at each other, and the sun is pale yellow the way it onlyever gets in the woods, in the morning, in summer. “I don’t need anything,” I tell him. I already answered every question XLR8 had about MASH; I was on the phone with Evelyn Cross for an hour.
Thanks to Sawyer, my app has gone from a school project to a serious prospect. And once Josie Sweet latched on, it was a forest fire, photos of the MASH interface flaring up across Instagram like so many sparks. I spent all weekend on XLR8’s website, reading and rereading their mission statement until it was seared into my eyeballs:XLR8 provides seed funding and unparalleled resources to help entrepreneurs build the next generation of innovative applications.
Am I an entrepreneur? I built MASH in my pajamas, in my bedroom, with Esther in my lap. And at the exact same time, XLR8 was setting their sights on an expansion into Colorado.Serendipitouswas the word Evelyn used.We just opened a Denver office. Come in on Monday and we’ll talk about the possibilities.
I think it’s all those possibilities that are making it hard to breathe. What if this thing takes off even more? What if—I trip over a tree root and Dad’s arm shoots out to catch me—it doesn’t?
“You okay?” he asks.
“Totally.” A through-the-teeth lie, but I’m hoping we’ll both believe it. “Just these stupid shoes.”
“You can take them off in the car,” he says, glancing down. And then we leave the woods, and we don’t say anything else the whole entire drive to Denver.
04
The XLR8 office is in a high-rise right off the river, wall-to-wall windows glittering like sun on water. We park in the underground garage and Dad hands me the ticket so we can get it validated, pointing right at me as he does it.
“Don’t lose that,” he says, and this small warning is what finally—after a forty-minute drive in silent panic—calms me down. No matter what happens here today, we’ll still need to get the parking validated. Life isn’t so unfamiliar.
In the lobby, everything is smooth and white. No hard edges, nothing out of place. There’s a monstera plant on the coffee table in the seating area and I think,You’re far from home. I want to touch it, see if it’s fake.
“Rose?” We aren’t even through the door when my name fills the room. It’s the receptionist, who walks around the desk to greet us in low-top sneakers and a stop-sign-red hoodie. “We’re so excited you’re here. I’m Mia.”
She shakes my hand and then reaches for Dad’s. “You must be Rose’s dad.”
“The one and only,” he says, and I clench my jaw to keep from wincing.
“Can I get you anything while you wait for Evelyn? Water? Tea?” She gestures to a glass door, her ponytail swinging. “There’s kombucha on tap in the back. Blueberry lavender, pineapple turmeric, or apple ginger.”
“Water’s great,” I say, and Dad nods.
“On it.” Mia sweeps a hand toward the white leather couch, and we drift over to it. “I’ll be right back. Evelyn’s just wrapping up her nine o’clock.”
I settle next to Dad, smoothing my blazer. He reaches for the monstera and rubs one leaf between his thumb and forefinger. “Fake.” He tips his head, smiling. “But convincing.”
“Surprised you didn’t go for the pineapple turmeric kombucha,” I say, and he starts to laugh before covering his mouth with one hand. My phone buzzes, and when I pull it out of my pocket it’s Maren:Sending every good vibe in the whole universe! But I think my amazing logo will seal the deal so nothing to worry about!!
Before I can respond, Mia’s back with our waters, placing them on the table in front of us with little napkins.
